By DAVE NICHOLSON
The Tampa Tribune

LAKELAND – A Lakeland woman is being held at Polk County Jail without bail on charges she fatally stabbed her brother with a broken bottle on her birthday.

Patrick Smith, 33, survived for nearly a week before dying Sunday, police spokesman Jack Gillen said. The sister, 39, turned herself into police Wednesday night after an investigation into the June 18 stabbing, he said.

About 8 p.m. on June 18, Rose Smith repeatedly stabbed her brother at her home at 1306 Herschel St., according to a police report. He was taken to Lakeland Regional Medical Center with cuts to his head, shoulders and an artery in his arm.

Witnesses told police the siblings had been fighting about their mother’s care and finances. On his way out of the house, Patrick Smith asked Rose Smith where she had been when her mother needed her, the witnesses said, and he knocked a drink out of her hand.

Rose Smith followed her brother out of the house and threw a picture frame at him, witnesses told police. She then broke a bottle of gin and used part of the bottle to stab her brother, according to a police report.

During the altercation, Rose Smith cut her son on the hand when he tried to intervene, according to the report. He was not seriously hurt. His age was unknown.

The stabbing did not take place during a birthday celebration, police said.

At the request of prosecutors, police reinterviewed witnesses before the decision was made to arrest Smith on a second-degree murder charge, Gillen said.

This was the first homicide of the year in the city limits, he said.

Tribune copy editor Emily Seawell contributed to this report. Reporter Dave Nicholson can be reached at (813) 865-4432 or .

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